# USB Flash drives are getting ridiculously small and have large storage GB's **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 21, 2026, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867 "2026-02-21T05:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/21 "2026-02-21T16:55:52Z")
Speaking of blast-from-the-past old, expensive, and small disk drives, does anyone remember the days when disk compression was a popular thing? The utility I remember was called Stacker, from Stac Electronics. It used a lossless compression algorithm to reduce the amount of disk space that files took up, its effectiveness of course greatly varying with the type of file. At some point Microsoft incorporated the tech directly into Windows. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/22 "2026-02-21T16:57:35Z")
Oh yeah. And it could take many hours to run the program ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/23 "2026-02-21T17:29:58Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Speaking of blast-from-the-past old, expensive, and small disk drives, does anyone remember the days when disk compression was a popular thing? And defragging. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/24 "2026-02-21T17:38:27Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > does anyone remember the days when disk compression was a popular thing? The utility I remember was called Stacker, from Stac Electronics. Yes, used Stacker and DoubleSpace/DriveSpace. Worked pretty well except for the time a virus on a floppy corrupted whatever file allowed it to decrypt the files and I ended up with a disk full of unrecoverable jibberish. That was in the bad old days of needing to upgrade components a bit at a time in the hopes of someday making performance barely adequate. When I first started using it I had either a single 170 MB drive or the 170 MB drive and a 240 MB drive. (That was in the early 1990s and I already knew the word “gigabyte” but couldn’t buy one.) (I also used QEMM and spent many hours trying to move as many drivers as possible out of the bottom 640 KB.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/25 "2026-02-21T18:31:18Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > [/blast from the past] Even blastier from the pastier, in 1973 Professor Ed Fredkin, head of Project MAC at MIT and the originator of simulation theory, told my architecture class that someday memory would have been as cheap as a penny a bit. Computation of the price of a bit of flash memory today is left as an exercise to the reader. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/26 "2026-02-21T18:43:51Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So you were using a 2.2 GB drive but didn’t know what it was called? D 'oh I meant TB. Sorry for the brain fart. Yes, we had lots of 2.2GB’s. Our dept ordered 10 Gateway pc’s for a lab with that size hard drive. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/27 "2026-02-21T18:50:09Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I much rather carry a flash drive in my shirt pocket. If you want to carry it with you, why not attach it to your keychain? That’s what the big hole in the end is for. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/28 "2026-02-21T18:53:35Z")
I have one of these full of music plugged into my car dashboard. I wanted something that sticks out as little as possible so as to reduce the need to be careful not to bop it in some damaging way. It comes into the house only when I want to switch music in and out, but it goes back to the car asap. It’s worked out pretty well so far. > **[Amazon.com: PNY 512GB Elite-X Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive - 200MB/s : Electronics](https://www.amazon.com/PNY-512GB-Elite-X-Flash-Drive/dp/B088RMCCLR)** > > The PNY Elite-X Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive is built for speed and convenience, making it the ideal solution for large files and demanding applications. With read speeds of up to 200MB/s, the Elite-X Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive is up to 30x faster than... ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/29 "2026-02-21T19:01:22Z")
I have a small 16gb flash drive in my car radio’s usb port. I’ve had that drive at least 10 years. I hope the Flash drives bought today have similar reliability. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/30 "2026-02-21T19:46:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yeah, my first Real Computer (1995) had a 540 MB hard drive. That surprises me. My first had a 20MB hard drive, with DoubleSpace used to give me enough room for Windows 3.11 and games and stuff. Sure, my computer was a bit older when I got it 1996, but I guess I just assumed everyone else would get stuff even sooner than I did, being …more temporarily experienced. I did get a 486 DX later, and while I’m entirely sure how big the drive was, I am confident it was under 100 MB. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/31 "2026-02-21T19:49:21Z")
Make sure you test every flash drive you buy. The market is saturated with very good counterfeits. I use f3 ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/32 "2026-02-21T19:59:19Z")
I hadn’t thought about testing. Looks like this sofware will do it. Github has something similar. > **[USB Flash Drive Tester for Windows - Free download and software reviews -...](https://download.cnet.com/usb-flash-drive-tester/3000-2086_4-10810585.html)** > > Download USB Flash Drive Tester latest version for Windows free. USB Flash Drive Tester latest update: January 2, 2026 ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/33 "2026-02-21T20:04:42Z")
Oh, yeah. Definitely buy from reputable brands in a verified way (e.g. from that brand’s store on Amazon). So many fakes out there, and the current situation with memory and storage would likely make those scams even more likely. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/34 "2026-02-21T20:28:24Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I did get a 486 DX later, and while I’m entirely sure how big the drive was, I am confident it was under 100 MB. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s there was a computer company called Dee One Systems (shortened, of course, to DOS). While other companies like Dell and Gateway 2000 would publish adds of multiple glossy pages, Dee One Systems would have a (I think) half page ad in the back pages of _Computer Shopper_. Their ad was simply a dense table of configurations, you picked every component yourself, CPU, memory, storage, video card, case style, monitor, and they built that system for you. And their prices were the absolute lowest of the _many_ companies advertising at the time in Computer Shopper. I would look at their adds every month to see how much component prices had dropped. In college in 1992 I finally had a couple of thousand dollars to put into a computer so I designed one from Dee One Systems: a 486 DX 33 (486 DX 50 was the best available at the time), 4 MB of RAM, and a 170 MB HD. I know that they had HD options up to 340 MB, I don’t _think_ they sold anything larger at that moment. (Smallest available was either 20 MB or 40 MB.) With a mid-tower case, a pair of floppy drives, and a 14 inch monitor the price was around $1180. (I bought an 8-bit Soundblaster and 1x CD-ROM bundle locally for another $300 IIRC, and the day the computer arrived I switched it on to see if it worked, then immediately switched it off, opened it up, and added the sound card and CD-ROM.) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/35 "2026-02-21T20:41:10Z")
Since we’re reminiscing about first PCs, technically I guess my first was a VaxMate – a 286-based almost-but-not-quite-PC-clone with 5 1/4" floppy drives and an amazing 10 MB hard disk (imagine! 10 whole megabytes!!) the size of a pizza carton that sat underneath the integrated computer/monitor. This was a castoff freebie from my employer at the time and I never considered it more than a toy. My first actual purchased computer was a 486SX running at 25 Mhz with a 120 MB disk drive. I overclocked it to 33 Mhz and installed an extra fan blowing directly on the CPU chip to prevent overheating! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tride](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tride/32/13907_2.png) [@Tride](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tride)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/36 "2026-02-21T21:53:32Z")
My college roommate got an AT&T 6300 with a 20MB hard drive in 1988. The concept of not having to juggle micro-floppies was crazy to all of us. I think it was like $2500… ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/37 "2026-02-21T22:14:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yeah, my first Real Computer (1995) had a 540 MB hard drive Same year and hard drive for my family’s first PC. Maybe a Compaq Presario, probably from Circuit City. > [@hajario](#): > > 128MB thumb drive that I got in 2002 I also got a 128 Mb jumpdrive in about 2000. It was from the college bookstore, $199, and bundled into the mandatory laptop lease program just being rolled out. So I probably paid decades of interest on it, too. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/38 "2026-02-21T22:26:17Z")
I still have a receipt from 12/10/92 from Compu-Sys Information Network 486/33 212 MB HD 1.2 MB floppy 1.44 MB floppy Fax/modem 2400 Windows 3.1 For RAM it just says 1X9 SIMM. I’m guessing 4MB? Total price $2300 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/39 "2026-02-21T23:00:43Z")
Sometime around 1999-2001, I visited a friend in Massachusetts who was an engineer with [EMC Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMC_Corporation), which made enterprise storage systems. At one point, we visited his office with him and he showed us their flagship product, a computer rack containing dozens or hundreds of consumer-grade hard drives that together gave a whole _terabyte_ of storage for a cost probably in excess of a million dollars. We, of course oohed and aahed at that. Now, of course, a terabyte is nothing and I can carry multiples of that in my pocket. (I think similar products today are at the petabyte level; I don’t think exabyte storage is available. Yet.) ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867/40 "2026-02-21T23:15:26Z")
I have the same flash drive as OP, it is very slender compared to a regular USB drive. But I also have a USB drive that is about the size of a mouse dongle that I use on a computer that I don’t want to bump into anything. I think microSD cards tend to top out at about 1-2TB now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usb-flash-drives-are-getting-ridiculously-small-and-have-large-storage-gbs/1027867.md?page=3)